The reality of ACTA – in its own words and numbers

By M Donnelly, on March 17th, 2014

POSTED BY BOB HAYES

“ACTA claims in the ‘mission statement’ on the homepage of its website, ‘we believe that an atmosphere of openness and dialogue both with each other and with our bishops needs developing’. [http://www.acalltoaction.org.uk/] Is this statement true or a bare-faced lie?

Well, let’s look at the ACTA website for evidence. The ‘leadership team’ (ACTA wallows in the language of management consultancy) comprises:

The website forum seems an obvious focus for the dialogue that ACTA champions and demands. From the homepage it is not obvious that the site has a forum: not very conducive to dialogue. In order to join the discussion one needs to register – rather less open than PtP for example.

So, to what extent do members of the ‘leadership team’ engage in dialogue via the ACTA forum? Here are the answers including number of posts:

Only four of the eleven-member ‘leadership team’ have contributed to the forum discussion, and that amounting to just 35 posts out of the total 556 posts on the forum.

While the ‘leadership team’ is evidently shy of the forum, the ‘members’ are barely more enthusiastic. In fact, there are more contributions expressing orthodox viewpoints than supporting ACTA’s agenda.

On the basis of evidence from ACTA’s own website it is patently obvious that the ‘leadership team’ and ordinary ‘members’ have very little interest in dialogue with anyone else.

ACTA is not about dialogue: it is building an alternative hierarchy and awaiting an opportune moment to stage a putsch and pursue its agenda. Its public proclamation that it seeks only dialogue is a lie – and its leaders are disingenuous and frightened of debate.”

82 comments to The reality of ACTA – in its own words and numbers

ACTA is a tiny group. Therefore orthodox Catholics everywhere should just join it, vote to kick out all the local and national leadership, and then use it as a group dedicated to implementing the Second Vatican Council fully (ie Mass in Latin, renewed teaching on sexual ethics, etc). All the liberals will leave and set up a new group, then follow them and keep doing the above. Eventually they will have to show their true colours like the American group of the same time did

Dear Bob Hayes and Mrs Donnelly, thanks for the post. Yes i was a member of the forum for a while and tried to get into some dialogue. One of the things you will always notice there are comments made with nothing to substantiate their opinions. I was always shot down straight away and not mentioning certain names, but when I asked challenging questions I only received sarcasm and this was from one of the main core group. I did however unfortunately find something very disturbing; my parish priest is a member and I’m gutted.

Also I would like to say that one of the more disturbing things for me is their support for contraception i.e. the culture of death of the unborn. I am married and young and open to God’s blessings of children, but to openly support and promote contraception preventative or abortive is not only an offence, but pierces the heart of Christ, this is their agenda and one that does not make logical sense?

For example:

1) Contraception like the pill is abortive (MURDER) not just preventative.
2) The 7th Commandment is thou shall not kill.
3) Jesus says “If you love me, keep my commandments” John 14:15.

So by this simple logic and you don’t need to be a theologian to understand, so we can see that:

1) they are promoting murder.
2)they are promoting mortal sin.
3)they DO NOT love Jesus.

Finally it seems that nearly every member of ACTA is to old to have children anyway, so why are they trying to force this illogical teaching on minors and the younger members of the church who are intellectually vulnerable in its teachings. It just does not make sense make sense. This is not what nearly every practising young person wants.

So I say to ACTA from a young practicing Father who DOES NOT use contraceptive measures that you are not to place yourselves in the place of God and openly promote the culture of death. You should repent for what you are doing while you can. You are forcing the Doctrines of men and bad spirits on the young. Playing russian roulette everyday promoting mortal sin is risky business. I will be praying for you all at ACTA that you rethink your opinions and come back into line with Catholic Teaching. Godbless

Paul, not sure what name you are posting under the Forum but I cannot see any discussion on there regarding contraception. If you can tell me what your Forum name is then I can post your comments and the responses made, so all for transparency can see what was actually said (if anything). Paul do you have a surname? What Forum name did you use?

That’s very good of you. Now in the interest of your own much trumpeted “transparency” which you’ve just referred to can you please give straightforward yes and no answers to this list of points which I suggest to you are ACTA’s true aims:

1. Rejection of Humanae Vitae – acceptance of contraception.
2. Rejection of the the Church’s teaching on conscience, and it’s replacement by a new flexible individualistic interpretation using a corruption of the teaching on the sensus fidelium.
3. Women priests
4. LGBTs to be able to have full sexual relationships and the Church neither to criticise this or call it sinful.
5. The Magisterium of the Church to be replaced by a Magisterium of the People; morals and teachings of the Church to be decided in a more ‘democratic’ way.

Womanpriests are never ruled out in Scripture, they just never happened. Not saying they should.

Gaymarriage is sacrilege, but no less sacrilegous than remarriage of the divorced. Time for Christians to start using a Latin or Greek word for marriage instead, so people will know the difference betwees sacramental marriage and whatever the government decides to recognize.

Democracy is never explicitly ruled out; Christ chose a pope and some bishops to begin with, and there have always been bishops, priests, deacons, and subdeacons. Christ did say that the gates of Hell will not prevail against the Church.

“Surety had gone out of the window with the rule book and uncertainty knocked at the door.
There was a real feeling of expectation and hope, the expectation of challenge that the Council Documents demanded and the hope they instilled.

But within three years came the first significant disappointment, for in July 1968 Paul VI published Humanae Vitae and, in spite of the overwhelming majority view of the Commission set up to examine the issue in favour of change, this encyclical upheld the traditional teaching on contraception.”

And I know for a FACT that in the ACTA Google Group, active encouragement was being provided to the readers there to answer the recent survey on the Family in a manner supporting contraception and demanding change in the Catholic doctrine regarding this question.

It is rank hypocrisy from Alex Walker to seek to use “plausible deniability” in this manner, when it is common knowledge that ACTA do indeed promote such views on the question of birth control.

BJC’s fifth point really says it all though — “The Magisterium of the Church to be replaced by a Magisterium of the People; morals and teachings of the Church to be decided in a more ‘democratic’ way.” This is the core doctrine of ACTA, and its core doctrinal Error, and it lets such as Alex Walker claim that the promotion of contraception is not a part of the ACTA aims, all the while as he knows jolly well, as does anyone who has been following the antics of this organisation, that the promotion of contraception is part of the most frequently mentioned demands for change that are desired by ACTA as a whole.

10. Married love, therefore, requires of husband and wife the full awareness of their obligations in the matter of responsible parenthood, which today, rightly enough, is much insisted upon, but which at the same time should be rightly understood. Thus, we do well to consider responsible parenthood in the light of its varied legitimate and interrelated aspects.

Humanae Vitae

2. Responsible parenthood, as we use the term here, has one further essential aspect of paramount importance. It concerns the objective moral order which was established by God, and of which a right conscience is the true interpreter. In a word, the exercise of responsible parenthood requires that husband and wife, keeping a right order of priorities, recognize their own duties toward God, themselves, their families and human society.

Humane Vitae

3. “But we need to create still broader opportunities for a more incisive female presence in the Church,” including “the possible role of women in decision-making in different areas of the Church’s life.”

Evangelii Guadium, Pope Francis

4. “If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?”

Pope Francis – July 29th 2013

5. We are all missionary disciples

119. In all the baptized, from first to last, the sanctifying power of the Spirit is at work, impelling us to evangelization. The people of God is holy thanks to this anointing, which makes it infallible in credendo. This means that it does not err in faith, even though it may not find words to explain that faith. The Spirit guides it in truth and leads it to salvation.[96] As part of his mysterious love for humanity, God furnishes the totality of the faithful with an instinct of faith – sensus fidei – which helps them to discern what is truly of God. The presence of the Spirit gives Christians a certain connaturality with divine realities, and a wisdom which enables them to grasp those realities intuitively, even when they lack the wherewithal to give them precise expression.

120. In virtue of their baptism, all the members of the People of God have become missionary disciples (cf. Mt 28:19). All the baptized, whatever their position in the Church or their level of instruction in the faith, are agents of evangelization, and it would be insufficient to envisage a plan of evangelization to be carried out by professionals while the rest of the faithful would simply be passive recipients. The new evangelization calls for personal involvement on the part of each of the baptized. Every Christian is challenged, here and now, to be actively engaged in evangelization; indeed, anyone who has truly experienced God’s saving love does not need much time or lengthy training to go out and proclaim that love. Every Christian is a missionary to the extent that he or she has encountered the love of God in Christ Jesus: we no longer say that we are “disciples” and “missionaries”, but rather that we are always “missionary disciples”. If we are not convinced, let us look at those first disciples, who, immediately after encountering the gaze of Jesus, went forth to proclaim him joyfully: “We have found the Messiah!” (Jn 1:41). The Samaritan woman became a missionary immediately after speaking with Jesus and many Samaritans come to believe in him “because of the woman’s testimony” (Jn 4:39). So too, Saint Paul, after his encounter with Jesus Christ, “immediately proclaimed Jesus” (Acts 9:20; cf. 22:6-21). So what are we waiting for?

You are being evasive again and not answering the questions. You are just giving more evidence of ACTA’s total lack of transparency. For the third time can please tell us whether these are ACTA’s true aims. Straightforward yes/no answers will do:

1. Rejection of Humanae Vitae – acceptance of contraception.
2. Rejection of the the Church’s teaching on conscience, and it’s replacement by a new flexible individualistic interpretation using a corruption of the teaching on the sensus fidelium.
3. Women priests
4. LGBTs to be able to have full sexual relationships and the Church neither to criticise this or call it sinful.
5. The Magisterium of the Church to be replaced by a Magisterium of the People; morals and teachings of the Church to be decided in a more ‘democratic’ way.

Forgot to say. Would you object to your leadership being questioned by lay people as to your aims in an an open forum at a parish of your choice? All questions and answers to be published in full. Seems like a very democratic and transparent idea to me and one fully in keeping with the “spirit of Vatican II”.

No disrespect but you have not read my post properly I did not say I got a sarcastic reply over a conversation about contraception. I just find ACTA’s support of contraception disturbing. And when I asked you why you would use the BBC as a source on one of your posts when they are anti-catholic you were not very welcoming to me. Why?

Paul,
1) they are promoting murder.
2) they are promoting mortal sin.
3) they DO NOT love Jesus.
You must be a very self-assured young man. I would hazard a guess that Mercy is not part of your vocabulary or theology (if you have one).

Dear Alex yes its true i am very assured of who I am before my God. And before you start ploughing into me about mercy you should respect that people can have very difficult lives. Some people have suffered terribly in life including their loved ones. However you cannot change murder into anything else thats just my point. And please again stop being condescending towards me at the end of your posts. It is not nice to assume to much about someone you do not know or understand. I have been nothing but kind towards you so please I would appreciate if you stop. many thanks and Godbless…….and you are in my prayers…

To be fair Alex, the poster (Paul) doesn’t state that he discussed issues of contraception etc on the ACTA forum, but rather that he was a member and had posted comments, asking challenging questions to which he felt there was no dialogue.
I’m sure Paul can respond himself, but to enter into dialogue is to actually read what has in fact been written.

Paul, putting the core of your post to one side – are people who are too old for childbearing debarred from having an opinion on contraception? Does that mean that you are debarred from opinions on, say, pensions?

There is objective truth and objective evil. One may reject the objective truth but then one is in objective error. Pensions is an area of prudential judgment. This is a matter of reason which enables us to recognise the true, the good.

While we wait for Paul to respond, would you mind replying to the question put before you in a previous comment as an aside to Paul’s comment. Just so we know ACTA’s views and so that you can answer the points without any fear of slander or libel and perhaps defend your position?

The comment above, which you may have skimmed over was:

That’s very good of you. Now in the interest of your own much trumpeted “transparency” which you’ve just referred to can you please give straightforward yes and no answers to this list of points which I suggest to you are ACTA’s true aims:

1. Rejection of Humanae Vitae – acceptance of contraception.
2. Rejection of the the Church’s teaching on conscience, and it’s replacement by a new flexible individualistic interpretation using a corruption of the teaching on the sensus fidelium.
3. Women priests
4. LGBTs to be able to have full sexual relationships and the Church neither to criticise this or call it sinful.
5. The Magisterium of the Church to be replaced by a Magisterium of the People; morals and teachings of the Church to be decided in a more ‘democratic’ way.

I accept why you are doing this Mr Walker (and you are correct to probe for clarification). However it does smack of double-standards when members of ACTA fly in here, making comment and then completely failing to answer questions when they are asked to clarify things.

I asked Elizabeth several questions the other day and answer came there none. However she delighted us with her presence the following day, not to answer any questions but to thank Desparate Dan for his supportive comment.

What is good for the goose is good for the gander and maybe, just maybe YOU will take this opportunity to reflect and encourage your side of the (currently non-existant) ‘debate’ to answer our questions honestly.

Hear, hear. Time and again we’ve had visits from ACTA members, and sometimes senior ones, and time and again they’ve been evasive or just run away when challenged. They love to make a meal of other peoples lack of transparency but when it comes to cover-ups and subterfuge they have few equals. The only question has to be with all the evidence of their duplicity is, why some of our Bishops have welcomed them with open arms? Are we really all paying our hard -earned wages so that a group of anti-catholic Catholics can make a mockery of the Church?

What I would like to see as a Catholic is a suspension of their activities in the Church and for an enquiry of their aims to be launched on which lay people would sit and ask their leadership some straightforward questions. All questions and answers would be published, so we could all see what they are about. If our Bishops are so keen on “transparency” in the Church and implementing their vision of the “Spirit of Vatican II” I hope they will readily with this democratic idea.

On Monday (Feast of St Patrick) I began a new thread on the ACTA website forum titled ‘A Martin Niemöller moment for ACTA?’ This is the text of my opening post:

Deacon Nick Donnelly has been ‘asked’ – by his bishop – to suspend his contributions to the Protect the Pope blog.

Given that ACTA is committed to dialogue, will it rally to the support of Deacon Nick, despite being at odds with him on many matters?

Or will it have a Martin Niemöller moment? ‘First they came for an orthodox blog, but I said nothing as I was not orthodox…’

Thirty-six hours later the OP has been viewed ten times and received one ‘thank you’ from an orthodox contributor to the forum. From ACTA’s ‘leadership team’, ‘diocesan delegates’ and ‘members’ not a word. Evidently ACTA is hypocritical as well as disingenuous and frightened.

That’s a great thread. I think we all know that when it comes to free speech ACTA and its leadership are only interested in themselves. They are more than happy with suppression of people they don’t agree with.

‘First they came for an orthodox blog, but I said nothing as I was not orthodox…’

The discussion is not closed, but restricted to those who register with the site. Despite ACTA’s claims to want dialogue it is only permitted on its terms – i.e. subject to registration. This narrows input and serves the utterly dishonest strategy of counting those who register as ‘members’. Thus I and other orthodox contributors add to ACTA’s claimed membership count.

Yes a LIVE PUBLIC DEBATE i think should be called for..before a committee of bishops, clergy and laypersons. If anyone says they do not want too, then they are a cowards plain and simple and their refusal will be a sign of their disobedience. I would challenge them any day. You know why? Because I will not prepare nothing and allow my Father in Heaven to put the words on my lips. Let the Holy Spirit challenge them. They wouldnt have the guts. Praise God!

Bob, you forgot to mention that the Forum used to be on the homepage, but after I and amorproecclesiam started posting, the link was soon removed. You now have to type in http://www.acalltoaction.org.uk/forum yourself if you want to go to that page.

Another thing is also interesting. Amorproecclesiam (who I happen to know personally) set up their account with a deliberate grammatical mistake. It is astonishing how many posts there are within ACTA complaining about the new translation of the Roman Missal. It did not take long for two or three of their members to point out to amorproecclesiam that they had used the wrong case for the preposition ‘pro’. One would therefore assume that the members have a grasp of Latin and should therefore be able to see that the new translation is far more faithful than the 1998 version they champion. Either way, their hatred of the Latin language seems confusing when they are so quick to correct the grammar of others.

Indeed, I recall that curious discussion. I see that ACTA’s Alex Walker (Site Administrator) dropped-in earlier to question a contributor – but failed to engage in dialogue with the article or subsequent comments. At times it appears ACTA people do not actually know what the word ‘dialogue’ means.

Ironically enough, “pro Ecclesiam” is correct in Late Latin, though in this case the Vulgate itself maintains usage of the Ablative that was in its death throes in the living language of the time. Preposition + Accusative became the norm for pretty much all circumstances.

Latin was moving from being a morphological language to a syntactical language – hence the reliance on prepositions rather than case endings. St Augustine complained somewhere how people could no longer get their cases right!

This post from one EddBart (who, by no coincidence, writes for The Tablet) posted the following comment five months ago:

I think this sums up the attitude of the group in general. ‘We have no respect for the successor of St. Peter to whom Our Blessed Lord HIMSELF gave the power to loosen and bind. It doesn’t matter what the Pope says, or indeed Christ for that matter, because we want to do as we please and we want the Church to legitimise what we do.’

One does indeed wonder what their response would be if Christ Himself approached each of them personally and offered some corrections to their views? Would they listen or would they say He wasn’t being very Christian, or that he was lacking in charity and tolerance?

Beware of “openness” and “dialog” — these are camels’ noses under the tent. The Anglican term is “Indaba”. The meaning is, “We will dialog with you, questioning established principlesm until you get so tired of objecting that you give in to our position, AND THEN WE WILL SUPPRESS YOU RUTHLESSLY”.

The establishment of ACTA by Catholic Priests is an indication that Priests and people are not content with the Catholic Church and her teachings. There has been a ‘rumble’ for about 25 years which calls out for changes in the church.

If men who considered becoming a RC Priest did not like or agree with the moral teachings of Holy Mother Church – why did they become RC Priests?

Now we see ACTA groups rising from the ground requesting dialogue about many matters, probably all based on moral teaching and the Magisterium of the RC Church and also the issue of women priests.

ACTA members are asking for certain changes. Please then consider the following:

To change a rule or principle you need to have authority.
To change Jesus’ words and teachings – you need to hear from the lips of Christ Himself.

When a Pope is asked to do something that exceeds his powers, he will say ‘I cannot do this’ or ‘this must remain as it is because it is only Jesus Christ Himself who can change this’

If a Bishop makes changes or acts outside the goverance of Rome, then he is wrong and ultra vires and the changes or acts are invalid.

Blessed John Paul II made it very clear to all that the Church does not have powers to ordain women. All these women who call themselves a catholic priest are simply wrong and their ‘ordination’ is not valid. The ‘sacraments’ that they give are not valid at all.

So members of ACTA you can talk and exchange views all you want. Please remember not to get disappointed when your ideas of change will not be realised and implemented. It simply cannot be done.

Before long it will be coming to your parishes. The message of ACTA is being spread subtly, from the pulpit, and before long, many well-meaning lay-people will be sucked into this. There is a culture (a good culture) of thinking the best of our clergy and trusting them and decent, good men and women (laity and clergy alike) will be snared by the seemingly egalitarian and seemingly forward-thinking allure of the likes of ACTA.

I would suggest that any time you hear a sermon that sounds like it has ‘modernist’ tendencies, check what has been said with what has been said in ACTA documents and what is on their website. You might be surprised just how closely some of the messages match.

We are heading for very troubled times and I fear that we will end up, before too long, as a minority voice within our own Church (at least in England and Wales anyway). We need to speak out when we can, stand firm, and get ready.

With regards to those who suggest I think elderly people are past it as some think I meant. I do not intend to shun anyones opinion we are all allowed a voice are we not? I just wonder why the majority of people in ACTA are at an age when contraception isn’t their daily concern. It’s not that I don’t think your opinions valid…. I do ….I just wonder why when most young catholics as all my friends do .. do not want this disobedience with regards to churches teaching it is focused on by ACTA.

ALEX I have never made anything up and only speak in truth before my Lord and God and I find your being very aggressive, assuming and impatient. Please calm your self down and pray a little.

‘Alex Walker
March 18, 2014 at 9:46 am · Reply
Paul, not sure what name you are posting under the Forum but I cannot see any discussion on there regarding contraception. If you can tell me what your Forum name is then I can post your comments and the responses made, so all for transparency can see what was actually said (if anything). Paul do you have a surname? What Forum name did you use?’

I don’t want to seem impatient too, but surely the easiest way for Paul to prove his case is to give out his forum name?

I have stated that I did not discuss contraception with anyone on ACTA so that is final. You ask for my name well you ain’t getting one until Doh above gives me his or hers name, address, telephone number and IP address….xx Godbless

Lets have a live public debate before our Bishops, Priests, Deacons, Religious and laity in one of main Cathedrals somewhere. This can all be sorted out with REAL Dialogue what do you say? Full transparency. We can look at ACTA’s Documents its ideologies and ideals and discuss them openly and then finally submit the results to Rome.

The liberals have A.C.T.A,is there not a need for the body of Christ to rise up in defence of the truth and create A.C.T.A aka ‘ A Call To Adoration’ ( of the blessed sacrament of course…) Surely such an organisation could successfully counter such a worldly one?? Ideas on a postcard..!

A wonderful thread you have initiated-we saw Ann Lardeur’s obfuscating here until her true intentions were outed on another blog.

ACTA Agitprop is disloyal , disobedient , disingenuous-but they have been well and truly rumbled.They profess humility but like you to know they have done non-Pontifical degrees in theology…as if they makes them superior to the ordinary pew goers.

Their real home is swimming the Tiber from Rome …not really on the Catholic bank at all.

‘Protect the Pope’ and ‘ACTA’ thinking do not, in my opinion, do much good for Mother Church.
The problem is they are both guilty of dualistic thinking ! Allow me to illustrate…”Dualistic thinking works only as long as you stay on the level of abstraction. But once you go to the specific and concrete, you find that everything in this world is always a mixture of darkness AND light, good and evil,death and life. If you’re honest about it, you can say, “This is what is good about it, and this is what is bad about it.” But if you stay at the level of dualistic thinking, you wont allow yourself to hold a necessary and life-giving tension. You’ll split to give yourself mental comfort and say, for example,”America is entirely good. American wars are always good wars.” It will give your ego superficial comfort, but there is no truth in it.
The dualistic mind is not adequate to the task of life. It cannot deal with subtlety, it cannot see or deal with the dark side of things like ACTA/PTP, it cannot ‘discern spirits’ – one of the gifts of the Spirit that St Paul speaks of (1Cor.12:10) The dualistic/splitting mind cannot deal with contradictions, with paradox, with inconsistencies, with mystery itself- which is just about everything !
Ultimate Reality cannot be seen with any dual operation of the mind, where we eliminate the mysterious, the confusing – anything scary, unfamiliar or outside our comfort zone. Dualistic thinking is not naked presence to the always-available Presence, but highly controlled and limited seeing.” (Fr Richard Rohr)
I dont see how there can be any real, charitable, listening,constructive, healthy dialogue until ACTA and PTP members stop thinking in a dualistic fashion. Only Unitive thinking will help us to draw closer to the Living God.

Clearly this kind of ‘unitive’ thinking requires much humility and a ‘standing down’from our precious ‘we are right because we have the Magisterium on our side!’ for the PTP side. And for the ACTA boys and girls to a ‘get real’…transparancy shift. Its actually probably harder for the PTP camp to shift as their black n white thinking can be so entrenched. Until this paradigm shift happens within the Church, I fear it will remain immature.

But if the Magisterium is on your side then you are right, and if your views are contrary to the teachings of the Church then you are wrong. It is not about a negotiation based on finding a meeting point between two different points of view, the teachings of the Church are the Truth, if you don’t accept them then you are rejecting the Truth. Views are contrary to the Teachings of the Church are wrong, always. Truth is absolute, not relative.

Dear Denis thank you so much for your post. There are many things i agree with in your post and yes life is very grey indeed. However there are absolutes in life and we must understand and respect that. God is good there is no evil in him = absolute. The end result of murder is always evil by taking Gods place. Godbless and thanks